


The Reconstruction of Sherlock Holmes

by notagarroter (redbuttonhole)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 04:09:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/notagarroter
Summary: A three-part deconstructive analysis of Sherlock Holmes, post-Reichenbach.





	1. The Missing Reichenbach Solution

 

  


 

Moftiss et al love a cliffhanger, don't they?  It's an old trick, beloved to writers and filmmakers since the early days of serial adventure dramas.  In its most classic form, the hero is shown hanging off the edge of a literal cliff as the episode comes to a close, leaving the viewer desperate to find out if he will live or die in the next installment.  Of course, the sophisticated viewer knows that the hero will almost always live (unless the actor's contract has been canceled). But that doesn't necessarily detract from the drama.

The last scene in TGG is a good example of this – our heroes are in a deadly situation, snipers behind them, explosives in front, and a semi-suicidal madman presiding over it all.  How will they possibly get out of this?  Tune in ~~next week~~ two years hence!  

From a distance, the end of TRF looks like another standard cliffhanger, the viewer breathlessly anticipating the promised resolution.  But it's doing something a bit different.  

* * *

 

Contrary to tradition, this cliffhanger doesn't end with our hero on the cliff.  Instead, we get to watch him fall.  We watch him hit the ground.  And even more remarkably, we watch him come back to life.  

  


 

Roll credits.

That's not the usual order of things when creating a cliffhanger, but in this case it was necessary -- this was a nod, of course, to the fact that the audience has known for over 100 years that Sherlock Holmes survives the fall.  Moftiss have shifted our emotional energy from, "what is going to happen?" to "how did he do that?"  That in itself is a neat trick, but that's not all that's happening here.  Sherlock's appearance at the end of TRF marks a shift in the way this story is being told.  A shift that was anticipated as early as the first episode, but is only now coming to full fruition.  TRF is a crucial moment not only in the narrative, but in the meta narrative of the show: Moftiss are forcing us to examine what it means to update this hero to our own era.  

In the first season, it was possible to watch the show and believe that all you needed was a handful of mobile phones to bring the iconic Victorian detective into the modern age – very little else had to change.  

  


 

But already in series 2, Moftiss started showing us the cracks that result from this uneasy melding of the old and the new: something about Sherlock Holmes doesn't quite fit with our world.  Mobile phone in hand, he nonetheless remains a bit of a throwback, not quite in step with the way we tell stories today.

Why is this?  Season 1 Sherlock is the very model of the [rational, coherent subject](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophical_Discourse_of_Modernity).  This creature is a fantasy that has been with us since at least the Enlightenment, and was much beloved by Victorians as well.  The rational subject may not have achieved complete mastery of the world around him, but he knows it to be possible.  He (and he is always, necessarily a white male) believes in science and technology and progress, and that these tools will be enough to eventually unlock every mystery.  The rationalist trusts his reason and he trusts his senses, especially vision – to properly see something is to understand it.  

_JOHN: Yes, how did you know?  
SHERLOCK: I didn’t know, I saw. _

Those who fail to understand have failed to see.  The rational subject is also stable – he knows who he is, he understands himself, and he behaves predictably, reasonably, and coherently.

With the development of the Moriarty arc in season 2, we see that rationalist fantasy start to fall apart.  We could argue the end of ASiB marks the beginning: 

  


 

The first sign of the irrational creeping into Sherlock.  Then in THoB, we see a Sherlock who no longer understands himself.  

  


 

He is not in control of his body, and can no longer trust his senses -- particularly his eyes.  He is becoming fractured, and he doesn't handle it well.  Then in TRF, Moriarty, the imp of the postmodern, steals the show by deconstructing the mythology of Sherlock Holmes.  Moriarty robs Sherlock of his good name, but even more damningly, demonstrates to him that his reason and intelligence cannot protect him.  

  


 

Sherlock saw, but he didn't hear – his reason failed when up against the clever, unpredictable madness of Moriarty.  

Given this deconstructive narrative, what kind of "solution" to the Reichenbach Fall could we possibly have expected?  As viewers, we like to imagine that we would have been satisfied with a single, coherent, perfectly explicated solution.  But I'm arguing that such a solution would have been a betrayal of the larger critical work the show is doing, and would have been a disappointment in its own right.  Many fans wished for a solution that brought us back to S1 Sherlock, perhaps to reassure us that reason will triumph over madness, and Sherlock Holmes may once again be the iconic, crime-solving master.  But that was never really possible, nor should we want it to be – any more than we should want to return to the simplistic, dishonest, phony rationalism of the Victorian era.

Instead, Moftiss challenged us with a series overlapping, contradictory and unresolvable explanations for Reichenbach.  We are teased with two that seem patently ridiculous before getting a third which *seems* like it will satisfy our yearning for a simple, straightforward "truth".  

  


 

And left unexamined, it does – a casual viewer can walk away from The Empty Hearse feeling like he got the answer to the problem.

But anyone who looks more closely will discover that even [the third solution, in all its wondrous complexity, simply doesn't work](http://notagarroter.tumblr.com/post/91795969470/reichenplot-the-videotaped-solution).  The S1 fantasia of a Sherlock who can always explain what happened with perfect, rational precision has been broken down into fractured perspectives, a tension between public and private truths, logic that isn't logical, mania (in the form of Anderson) that may be quite sane... Everything Moftiss taught us to trust about this universe has been questioned and unsettled.

Which brings us to the **fourth** Reichenbach solution – the one that was right in front of us all this time, but is rarely recognized or acknowledged:

  


 

Of all the solutions, this is the only one that "works", but it's anything but rational.  And what's most telling about this solution is something that happens only a few moments earlier:

  


 

In this moment, Sherlock is dwelling in undecideability.  He doesn't like it, he tells us he doesn't like it. Rationalist that he is, he wants there to be answers. And yet, in this moment he is acknowledging that there aren't always answers. Not merely that he hasn't figured out the solution yet, but that the truth may not be certain -- that there may not even _be_ a single, coherent truth.

And so it’s no surprise that when John finally demands to know what really happened when Sherlock jumped off the roof, the answer is both impossible and inevitable – what we didn't want to accept and yet knew all along: Sherlock Holmes is indestructible.  Even his own creator couldn't kill him.  And writers like Moftiss, and like me, and like you, will keep reviving him until the end of time. 

_all quotations thanks to[ariane devere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/). _   


	2. Deerstalkers and Doppelgangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will the Real Sherlock Holmes Please Stand Up? Identity and Performativity in BBC Sherlock

_Identity and Performativity in BBC Sherlock_

I promised last week that I would look at the rest of S3, but first I want to spend a _little_ more time on this scene at the end of TEH, because there's a hell of a lot going on there.  In fact, that scene contains what consider to be one of my favorite moments in all ten episodes of Sherlock:

  


 

Sherlock here looks... puzzled? confused? surprised? troubled? _  
_

_By his own scarf._   

Why?

* * *

 

I have no idea if this is in the script or if it's just something Benedict did that the camera caught, or if the director suggested it.  There's no dialogue, there's very little narrative context, and facial expressions are always open to interpretation.  It's probably wisest to just throw up our hands and say, who knows?  But I like a challenge, so let's dig in.

A possible key to this weird moment may be found a few moments later.

 _JOHN: You love it._  
SHERLOCK (turning to face him): Love what?  
JOHN: Being Sherlock Holmes.

  


 

What *does* it mean?  Here, perhaps, is the real mystery of TEH, far more compelling than terrorists and tube cars.  Why should Sherlock Holmes of all people be troubled by this question?  Surely for him, all it requires to "be Sherlock Holmes" is to simply be himself, do whatever comes naturally, follow his instincts.  He can't help but be Sherlock Holmes.  Right?

Well, maybe not.  Sherlock professes not to know what John means, but a moment later it's clear that he does.  He repeats John's comment, preserving its intended irony: "time to go and be Sherlock Holmes ," and then, after a moment's thought, he puts on the hat.  

  


 

What's clear here is that "being Sherlock Holmes" is *not* a matter of instinct.  It's not what Sherlock is naturally, all the time.  It's a performance, a role he is playing for the reporters outside.  He puts on the hat because it's what his public expects – it's what turns him from Sherlock into "Sherlock Holmes".  

The deerstalker in BBC Sherlock is an incredibly semantically rich object.  This style of hat has been associated with Sherlock Holmes almost from the beginning, yet most fans know that it doesn't derive from ACD at all – it was born out of the Sidney Paget illustrations, and has no basis in the original text.  Any time Moftiss evoke the hat, they are raising the question – Who is Sherlock Holmes?  Where did he begin?  How do we recognize him, and how do we misrecognize him?  Has the hat become more Sherlock Holmes than the character itself?  

  


 

When the hat first appears, Sherlock the character (and by extension, Sherlock the show) regard it with disdain – it's an accident, originally meant to shield Sherlock from his public, and ironically becoming inextricably linked to his public image.  Later, when other characters urge him to wear the hat, it becomes a part of "Sherlock Holmes" that Sherlock accepts only grudgingly.  But by the end of TEH, he has developed a new relationship to the hat – he claims it willingly, deliberately.  He recognizes it as more "Sherlock Holmes" than he himself can be without it.  And yet, he still holds it at a distance – the hat is a way for him to keep his public image as "Sherlock Holmes" separate from his private self.  

The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that the private Sherlock is the "real", authentic Sherlock, whereas Hat!Sherlock is just a performance.  But let's look more closely at that idea.  What is "real", when it comes to Sherlock Holmes?

  


 

We talked about this moment last week – how Sherlock is acknowledging the complexity and indeterminacy of truth in the real world.  But is this real life?   Well, of course not -- this is an embellished fiction.  We haven't accessed the "real" at all, but rather another layer of fictive performance.  Just as "Sherlock Holmes" performs for journalists and fans within the world of the TV show, Sherlock is also performing for us at home – but that performance looks different.

  


 

In the first episode, Moftiss distanced themselves from earlier Holmes portrayals by doing away with Paget's hat and cape and pipe and oversized magnifying glass, but they replaced them with the Coat and Scarf. The Belstaff isn't just an article of clothing, an element of the costume. There is a sense in which the Coat *is* Sherlock Holmes.

  


 

Hat!Sherlock and Coat!Sherlock are both performances.  Neither is "true" and yet in another way, both are true. They represent different layers of signification.

But if "being Sherlock Holmes" is just a performance, does that mean anyone can do it?  Give someone a coat and scarf and they magically become the great detective?  Sort of.  

God knows that literature and film and theater have given us a multiplicity of Holmes’s over the years.  What's interesting is that BBC Sherlock has doubled our hero within the show – twice.  

  


 

Sherlock explains during TEH what some fans already suspected from TRF: that Moriarty employed a double of Sherlock to kidnap the children, and thus confuse the public.  As far as we can tell from his summary, Sherlock takes this revelation in stride.  Not only is he unalarmed to learn that he has a evil twin performing terrible crimes in his name, he blithely uses this man's body to double for his own corpse.  He even donates a coat and scarf to him.

But when the second double comes along, Sherlock appears quite a bit more shaken.  

  


 

And here we are, back at mysterious scarf moment.  

  


 

Moments before this shot, Sherlock and John met Molly's new boyfriend, Tom.  Both of them made the immediate connection that Tom looks like Sherlock.  

But does he?  Not that much.  He's tall, his hair is dark and curly, and he's wearing a coat and scarf, but otherwise Tom is a pretty poor copy.  Nevertheless, Tom is crucial this whole question -- what is it that makes Sherlock _Sherlock_?  Is it the scarf?

In one sense, obviously not -- Sherlock can do his deductions and be the world's only consulting detective without a damn scarf.  We've seen him work in his shirt sleeves.

  


 

But something about coming face to face with a poorly-rendered copy of himself seems to have unbalanced Sherlock.  The next time Sherlock goes to put on his own scarf, he stands there staring at it like it's become completely unfamiliar to him.  It's as if his whole sense of identity has been destabilized by this one encounter, and instead of looking at his familiar blue scarf, he is staring into a yawning existential abyss (psychoanalytically speaking, [a typical reaction to meeting one's double](http://blogs.setonhill.edu/mas3222/2013/02/17/the-doppelganger-rr-5-4-sigmund-freuds-the-uncanny/)).  

Why does the poor copy provoke anxiety and dread when the previous copy did nothing of the sort?  The answer may be found where everyone forgets to look.  

  


 

In this episode, Sherlock has already been unsettled to discover that John has moved on to a new life, new job, and new relationship, leaving no room for Sherlock.  That was bad enough, but now to discover that even Molly has found him utterly replaceable?  Sherlock may not return Molly's affections, but he could at least count on her as someone who [has known him at his worst and loved him anyway](http://notagarroter.tumblr.com/post/89999585255/this-is-a-favorite-sherlolly-moment-for-me).  If Molly can just as easily fall in love with anyone in a coat and scarf, then who _is_ the real Sherlock?  "Sherlock Holmes" may be back from the dead, but the Sherlock we know and love has been left in tatters, unrecognizable to his friends and even to himself.

In TSoT, He’ll make some moves to start rebuilding his identity.  But until then, there's nothing left but to put on the hat and be the only Sherlock Holmes he can still believe in.  

  


 

 


	3. The Reconstruction of Sherlock Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock critiques performativity.

By the end of The Empty Hearse, Sherlock has been forced to confront the deconstruction of everything he believes in: truth, rationality, and even his own identity.  Where does he go from here? 

  


TSoT has a sunny, cheerful, romcom aesthetic to it, but what we are really looking at here is a man who is embarking on a project to rebuild himself after a psychological, philosophical, and metaphysical meltdown. 

The public's version of Sherlock with the deerstalker may still exist, but Sherlock the consulting detective has all but vanished.  

* * *

Sherlock the detective is being replaced by Sherlock the man.  And not just any man: the _best_ man.  

  


Sherlock's description of Lestrade here is telling, as it suggests that Sherlock does not (at this moment) see himself as "a man, and good at it." Understandable for someone who has just experienced a major identity crisis.  But since John _does_ choose Sherlock to be the best man, Sherlock now has an opportunity to rebuild himself according to this model.

So what does a man who is "good at it" do, according to Sherlock?  He composes a waltz, threatens old boyfriends, trains ring bearers, and all in all throws himself so deeply into this new performance that nothing remains of the consulting detective.  When Lestrade rushes to his flat with maximum backup, Sherlock is fretting over a speech.  When John suggests a case to him, he appears baffled by the very idea.  When a client comes to the door, Sherlock is drunk and...  

  


...otherwise occupied.  

All around him, Sherlock's friends and associates are trying to urge him back to his old identity.  It is particularly telling that in the midst of a drunken Rizla game, John subverts the entire spirit of the game by assigning Sherlock _his own name_ and labeling him with it.  He is that desperate to get Sherlock to remember who he was before the Fall, but to no avail: when John describes him, Sherlock is incapable of recognizing himself.

  


And yet, even at his lowest point (forgetting the word for _chair_?), we see the foundations Sherlock will use to rebuild his identity as a detective.  Upon sobering up after the stag night, Sherlock is at least thinking about the case, though he continues to backburner it in favor of the wedding.  Then once at the wedding, he entertains Janine by "performing" little deductions – her familiarity with his public identity has given him a way back into that role. 

But the crucial turning point comes at the climax of his speech –

  


– when Sherlock finally drops the best man act and focuses on the case.  And yet, that transformative moment isn't without trauma: as Sherlock attempts to maintain his performance as "best man" while also performing "detective", we watch him nearly fall to pieces in front of us.

  


As best man, Sherlock was hardly bothered that the Bloody Guardsman went unsolved.  

  


It is only when John and Mary remind Sherlock that he is a "drama queen" that Sherlock fully embodies his performance as a detective once again. 

  


_(I'm tempted to detour here into queer readings of performativity and the term "drama queen", but it doesn't really serve my larger point.  Maybe some other day...)_

All right, got all that?  Because we're about to switch gears.  

How does all this performativity and identity stuff carry over into HLV?  Interestingly, HLV begins with Sherlock undercover.

  


Sherlock may be detecting once again, but he has abandoned his coat, his scarf, his glamorous suits, and all the external performative strategies that once made him Sherlock.  Indeed, he has even abandoned his name.  

  


To John and the others, it looks like Sherlock has suffered a complete breakdown – that he has entirely forgotten how to be Sherlock Holmes.  But what Shezza readily informs us is that those external trappings don't matter anymore, except inasmuch as they can be useful to him (as in [seducing Janine](http://notagarroter.tumblr.com/post/108916308240/sherlock-gives-excellent-head-a-trash-meta)).  The Consulting Detective is finally back, and all the rest is just window dressing.

Then Magnussen shows up.  Magnussen is a fascinating creature, because he understands performativity too – but the game he is playing is a little different... 

I need to interrupt here for a brief Performativity 101 course.  I'm borrowing heavily from [Judith Butler's concept of performativity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity#Judith_Butler), but while Butler does acknowledge the conventional, show-business sense of "performance", the term actually owes more to the semiotic idea that certain speech acts may be considered "performative".  That is to say, sometimes our words don't simply convey meaning, they also perform actions.  The classic example is a wedding: when the minister says "I now pronounce you husband and wife".  He is not simply chatting – he is creating a marriage where there wasn't one before.  In this way, words may do more than merely describe the world around us – they structure and create it.

So back to Sherlock – what Magnussen introduces to the proceedings is this idea that you don't need costumes or coats to create an effective performance.  All Magnussen needs are a few words.

  


_Abracadabra! 221b is now Magnussen’s office._ Through the sheer force of his speech, Magnussen has made a seeming absurdity into an undeniable fact.  And no one in the room questions it. 

However, Sherlock isn't ready to surrender completely to Magnussen's speech acts.  One of my favorite moments in HLV is Sherlock's sly riposte:

  


Magnussen's comment in the first scene is demonstrating that he can own anything (and anyone) simply by declaring it. If he decides 221b is now his office, there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. He's making a power play, claiming ownership of Sherlock's home, and by extension, Sherlock.  
  
When Sherlock revisits the gag, however, it's in a subversive spirit. He's not claiming to own Magnussen, or the restaurant, or the hospital -- not really. He's saying "Look, I can make absurd counterfactual claims, too." He's taking the piss, as it were... In a much more civilized way than Magnussen did.

  


This is Sherlock's warning to Magnussen: while performativity is powerful, performances can also be resisted.  Magnussen, however, doesn't take the warning.  Up to the end, he maintains that the words he prints are the only "truth" that matters.  He doesn't need evidence, all he needs is his mind palace and his printing press.

  


Magnussen believes himself invincible, since his vaults exist only in his mind, and therefore are inaccessible to real world attacks.  Sherlock, however, having recently watched his own performances be torn to shreds, understands the potential vulnerabilities of Magnussen's position.  

  


In the end, Sherlock's critique of Magnussen's philosophical position is elegant, robust, and irrefutable.  As powerful as performance may be, material reality remains a force to be reckoned with.

_(many thanks to[ariandevere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/) for her transcripts, and to [allysongrono](http://tmblr.co/m3wdfW_s3NJCehPQSeNYbaw) for sparking many of these ideas.)_


End file.
